about DCCC

Future Link Campus

Thanks to the extraordinary generosity of Ed Hinkle and Talmadge Hinkle Silversides, Davidson County Community College has an incredible asset, one which offers the potential for enormous expansion. On September 20, 2009, the DCCC Foundation announced that it had received from Hinkle and Silversides a gift of 183 acres of land, located across Business 85 from our current Davidson Campus.

The land was originally owned by their grandfather, Henry T. Link, a legend in the furniture industry and an innovator who introduced mass production in furniture-making and led Lexington’s Dixie Furniture Company to become the largest bedroom furniture manufacturer in the world.

The land once owned by Henry Link has the potential to house facilities and programs that can bring incredible new opportunities to our students and our local and regional communities. The potential vision for the new campus includes recreational facilities unlike any found in our area, such as a 3,500-seat arena for sporting events and community functions, a baseball stadium, a tennis complex, and softball and soccer fields. Close by could be a wind power generator, a symbol of sustainable energy and of DCCC’s expanding curriculum of green technologies. An amphitheater, nature conservation complex, miles of recreation trails, and a sustainable pine plantation are part of the vision for the new campus, a campus that will retain its natural setting while teaching students and our community about innovations in sustainability. And one day, groups of schoolchildren – and adults – may find themselves in the proposed animal sanctuary or aquarium, part of DCCC’s recently-formed Zoo & Aquarium Science program, one of only seven programs of its kind in the United States.

The decision to name the campus after Henry Link was easy – in addition to owning the land, he also was involved in the early planning that led to the creation of Davidson County Community College. To Link’s grandchildren, it became clear that the land is a “link” between DCCC’s past and its future. To DCCC, it became clear that Link’s grandchildren, Hinkle and Silversides, are among the new generation of heroes of the College.